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The Airport Fire has burned over 23,000 acres and is 5% contained as of 8 a.m. Thursday, with most of the fire now burning towards Lake Elsinore in Riverside County.
It’s the first signs of containment for the fire that was sparked by an Orange County public works crew when a spark from heavy equipment accidentally happened as they were placing boulders to block off vegetation on Trabuco Creek road, according to OCFA Deputy Chief of Operation TJ McGovern.
While the fire grew nearly another 1,000 acres overnight, OC Fire Authority Division Chief Kevin Fetterman said that the drop in temperature throughout the week gave firefighters an edge against the blaze despite the difficulties of working in the mountains.
“Our firefighters are working around the clock to not only uphold that trend but hopefully begin containment in the next few days,” Fetterman said at a media conference on Wednesday afternoon. “Some of these areas haven’t burned in decades.”
It remains unclear how many buildings have been damaged or destroyed by the fire because assessment teams haven’t gone in yet, but officials reported several buildings damaged or destroyed along Ortega Highway along with several cabins in the Cleveland National Forest.
No new evacuation orders have been issued for Orange County since Tuesday, but all previous evacuation warnings and mandatory orders are still in place for the county canyons, as well as portions of Coto De Caza and Rancho Santa Margarita.
Evacuated residents looking for a place to take their pets have been directed to either OC Animal Care in Tustin or the Mission Viejo Animal Services Center, and the county’s Animal Care Division is asking for volunteers to foster animals due to them running out of space.
Orange County Supervisors and Gov. Gavin Newsom have both declared the fire an emergency, with Newsom announcing incoming federal funding for the Airport Fire – meaning the Federal Emergency Management Agency will reimburse 75% of firefighting costs through grants.
“California is continuing to see extreme fire behavior across multiple locations in Southern California, where hot, dry weather has led to rapid fire growth,” Newsom said in a Wednesday morning news release.
At a Tuesday news conference, OC Fire Authority Chief Brian Fennessy said the separate fires in San Bernardino County and Los Angeles County are stretching firefighting resources thin.
“One of the challenges we’re having is competition with other large fires in Southern California,” Fennessy said Tuesday afternoon. “All of these fires are drawing down on the limited resources available to us.”
He also noted the steep terrain in the area, the vegetation growth from previous two wet winters that the recent heatwave just killed and the existing dead vegetation from previous droughts make it easy for the fire to spread.
“That’s a formula for the problems we’re experiencing today.”
Noah Biesiada is a Voice of OC reporter and corps member with Report for America, a GroundTruth initiative. Contact him at nbiesiada@voiceofoc.org or on Twitter @NBiesiada.
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